Second Marriage

Second Marriage
HELEN BROOKS

The second Mrs. Bellini Claire would make some man the perfect wife - everyone said so.But after being jilted by her fiance, she wasn't sure she believed in love anymore. Until she saw her best friend reunited with the husband she thought she'd lost forever - and Claire's faith in romance was restored. Staying with the happy couple, it seemed like fate when she met their closest friend, Romano Bellini. He was beautiful, and for a fleeting moment Claire wondered if… .But Romano had been married before and didn't want his life complicated by a second wife. Curious, then, that the subject of marriage just kept coming up!HUSBANDS & WIVES Sometimes the perfect marriage is worth waiting for!

“I think it was a mistake, bringing you here tonight.” (#uf83e9fe8-10f4-5472-a226-7c32195a3cd1)Letter to Reader (#u26871b19-98d9-5786-b93d-d2dbb2916551)Title Page (#u5e8437cb-c428-5734-8694-fab2d77b0e74)CHAPTER ONE (#u3341ec13-3dc7-5087-a67c-a9a067c97b84)CHAPTER TWO (#u47c14497-9978-521a-a6d8-d4d5027cc780)CHAPTER THREE (#u3d2dfa03-f702-56c1-96d1-64d55399de71)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I think it was a mistake, bringing you here tonight.”

Romano continued. “It is not fair. I am not an easy man to be with. Since my wife died, I have preferred to keep my life simple, uncluttered. I like it that way.”

“And having someone for dinner makes it cluttered and complicated?” she asked tightly. Claire’s face was outwardly calm, but her mind was racing. She had told him she had no designs on him, hadn’t she? How dare he presume she was interested in him and warn her off in that way?

He might be wealthy and powerful, with film-star good looks, but he was everything she despised in a man—a conceited egoist who thought he was God’s gift to womankind!

She pitied his late wife, she really did....

Sometimes the perfect marriage

is worth waiting for!

Dear Reader,

Wedding bells, orange blossom, blushing brides and dashing grooms...and happy ever after? As we all know, the path of true love often doesn’t run smoothly—both before and after the knot is tied. So what makes two people’s love for each other special? And why can love survive everything that is thrown at it?

In these two linked books I’ve explored that very thing—how one couple copes with a tragedy that has the potential to destroy their marriage; and, in the second book, how that same disaster sends out ripples of bitterness and disillusionment toward their friend, tarnishing his view of love until...

Well, read the books and all will be revealed! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing them, and do hope you enjoy reading them.

Love,

Helen Brooks

Second Marriage

Helen Brooks

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, HOLD on a moment, Grace, she’s just this minute walked in.’ As her mother thrust the telephone at her Claire’s fine eyebrows arched in enquiry, and in the next breath her mother whispered, ‘It’s Grace. She sounds... agitated.’

‘Grace?’ Claire almost snatched the receiver in her haste to talk to her friend, this friend who had endured so much in her twenty-five years of life but was now so happy—or had been the last time she had talked to her a week ago.

Don’t let anything be wrong. Please, please don’t let anything be wrong, she prayed quickly as she heard Grace speak her name. Let the baby be all right, let Grace be all right, let everyone be all right... Grace had lost a baby to cot death some years ago, when the child, a little boy named Paolo, was only six months old, and this was her first pregnancy since that terrible time.

‘I’m sorry to hound you the moment you get in from work,’ Grace said huskily, the strangeness in her voice emphasised by the miles separating them. ‘It’s just... I needed to speak to you.’

‘What’s wrong?’ There was something wrong; she knew it now. ‘You were going for your scan today, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, yes—and don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with the baby,’ the disembodied voice said quickly. ‘It’s just that it’s babies. Plural,’ she added as Claire didn’t speak.

‘Twins!’

‘Twins.’ Grace’s voice was flat.

‘But that’s wonderful,’ Claire responded enthusiastically, ‘isn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course it is.’ There was a little more animation in Grace’s tone now. ‘Donato’s over the moon, and I’m pleased—I am, really—but I just feel a bit overwhelmed, I suppose.’

‘But that’s perfectly understandable,’ Claire said softly, her big brown eyes darkening with a mixture of sympathy and concern.

Grace had been brought up in a children’s home and had never known the support and unconditional love of a mother, and although she had been very close to her husband’s mother, Liliana, almost from the first time she had met her, Liliana had died more than two and a half years ago. It was at times like this that it was reassuring to know that mothers, grandmothers, sisters were all at hand, but Grace had no immediate female family members to encourage her, Claire thought perceptively.

‘Claire—’ Grace stopped abruptly, and then, after Claire gave a gentle, ‘Yes?’. continued hesitantly, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might consider coming out here, is there? To live, I mean?’

‘To Italy?’ Claire stared across the hall in blank amazement, much to her mother’s irritation—she was hovering in the lounge doorway trying to make sense of Claire’s end of the conversation.

‘It doesn’t have to be straight away,’ Grace said quickly, ‘and it can be for as long or as short a time as you want, but I’d just love to know you’d be around when the babies were born. Oh, I shouldn’t have asked you,’ she continued in a little rush. ‘It’s not fair. I told Donato it’s not fair—’

‘Hang on—hang on a minute,’ Claire said slowly as she tried to feel her way in a conversation that had suddenly become extraordinary. ‘Are you saying you want me to come out and stay with you on a semi-permanent basis? More than a holiday or a long break?’

‘Yes.’ The reply was immediate. ‘For months, if you could. I’d love to have you here, I really would, and with you having trained as a nanny and everything—’ This time the sudden halt was even more abrupt, and Grace’s voice was hot with embarrassment when she went on, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Claire. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Claire said evenly, ‘I’m over all that now. But how would Donato feel about my coming to live with you?’

‘It was his suggestion,’ Grace said eagerly. ‘When we found out it was twins he thought I might need some help in the first few months, and he remembered you saying in the summer you were thinking of changing your job but weren’t sure what you wanted to do. He thought you could escape the worst of the English winter out here while you took the time to consider all your options, and we’d pay you for as long as you stayed so you’d have a little nest-egg behind you when you went back—’

‘No way,’ Claire interrupted firmly. ‘If I came it would be as a friend helping out a friend. I had that wonderful holiday with you in the summer, and Donato wouldn’t even let me pay for my airfare.’

‘Well, we’d see.’ Grace clearly wasn’t going to put any obstacles in the way of her coming at this early stage of the proceedings. ‘But do you think you might consider it, then? You could stay in the main house or with us—whichever you like—and Lorenzo would love to have you around for a while. He did miss you when you went home in September.’

‘I missed him.’ Claire smiled as she thought of Donato’s younger brother, who had just turned thirteen and was an enchanting mix of child and young man, with an infectious sense of fun that matched her own. ‘He’s a smashing kid.’

‘I’d love you to come, Claire,’ Grace said again, with a wistful note in her voice that was meant to charm. ‘I’ve lots of friends out here, good friends, but you’re different. I’ve always felt we should have been sisters.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Claire. And she did. The two women had only known each other for a few years, but almost from the first time they had met, when Grace had been estranged from Donato and living in England, the two of them had hit it off in a way that only happened once in a lifetime. Claire had five big, strapping brothers, but no sister, and Grace had filled a void in her life that she hadn’t even realised was there.

‘You’ll think about it, then? Look, here’s Donato. He wants a word with you too...’

All that had been eight weeks ago, and now it was the end of January, with the chaos of Christmas long forgotten. She had really left the raw winter chill of England far behind her, Claire thought happily as she emerged from Customs and looked around for Donato who was meeting her.

Her old job as receptionist in a doctors’ surgery, the bedlam of a home shared with her parents and the three remaining unmarried brothers, the memories of that awful time before she had met Grace—suddenly it all fell away, and she lifted her face to the mild sunlight streaming in through the plate glass windows of the airport terminal, its golden rays turning her sleek chestnut hair to glowing red silk.

‘Miss Wilson?’ The voice was cold, as was the face of the tall, dark man staring down at her, despite the polite smile that twisted the finely chiselled lips in a semblance of welcome. ‘Miss Claire Wilson?’

‘Yes?’ She wasn’t aware that the dreamy expression of delight had been wiped away, or that her velvety brown eyes were revealing her alarm and vulnerability, but the big man watching her so closely was aware of both, and it caused the chillingly handsome face to harden still further.

‘I am Romano Bellini—Donato’s brother-in-law?’ the heavily accented voice said smoothly. ‘He was called away unavoidably on a matter of great urgency this morning, and as he did not want Grace to drive in her condition he asked that I would meet you.’